The issue(s):
The primary issue with SHS and stock mechs is that the current system favors DHS favorably.
The DHS upgrade itself means that for a SHS to even "keep competitive", you will need 20 SHS installed.. just to keep up! This means you have to consume 10 tons and 10 slots of SHS. It literally doesn't make sense! So, it'll never be competitive with DHS. That's fine. However, stock mechs are inherently gimped for this very reason alone.
The other issue is that engines that are lower rated than 250 are at a hinderence when it comes to heat sink efficiency... it affects lighter mechs more, but it also affects heavier mechs that use smaller engines (see Cataphract-4X).
Proposal #1:
SHS in the internal engine should dissipate .14 heat/second (similar to current DHS). This way, it will take 6 tons and 6 slots of SHS to keep up with the straight DHS upgrade. That's a lot more reasonable for heavier mechs. Alternatively, it could be .15 heat/sec, which will take 5 tons and 5 slots of SHS to keep up with the straight DHS upgrade. Notably, this can fill up slots usually not consumed by DHS, like the head and legs. This is a perfectly simple upgrade that can immediately benefit all stock mechs.
Proposal #2 (for both SHS and DHS):
For those taking a stock engine that is currently < 250, filling up the required 10 HS is suboptimal. There should be a special upgrade specifically to address this. My current idea is restricted to STD engines at the moment (because of tonnage concerns/savings for XL). It should be an available option BEFORE buying a mech. For perhaps 500k to 750k of C-bills, you would be offered to have a special "engine upgrade" to allow external heatsinks to be added to a mech. Adding external SHS or DHS to an engine smaller than 250 will allow it to behave like an engine HS. This doesn't affect SHS much (unless you add in my suggestion from Proposal #1, which would help), but it would dramatically improve DHS usefulness.
This upgrade will allow the added protection the engine provides (275 or greater engines that can have heatsinks added to the engines behave differently, and can be shot off) AND allow for the aspects of proposal #1 to be effective for stock mechs.
The idea is that the trial mechs already have this upgrade implemented, so that heat dissipation of the mech improves the overall mech design dramatically. The basic idea is to semi-revert to a basic MW2/MW3 heat sink foundation, where you have the 10 basic HS installed. This is the same idea... as MWO's single heat sink distribution for <250 engines is probably not canon/TT. Understandably SHS in MWO can be used as crit protection, but let's be honest... what's the point of protecting a medium laser with a SHS if you overheat so often?
The "upgrade", will convert the "STD engine" to a psuedo-XL engine, which could be used to add some crits to both torso for balance. The crits issue would affect smaller engines in bigger mechs more (crits are a premium after all).
With those two proposals, they address two key issues with the current implementation of SHS... which is not being competitive for stock mechs, and not necessarily a "fair" trade for smaller engines (for DHS).
Edited by Deathlike, 22 March 2013 - 03:01 PM.